On 4/12/08 3:28 AM, "Peter Corteen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hi Bo and Matt and others,
>
> Matt's definition rings some bells with some thoughts I had: religion is old
> fashioned science, and after Matt, religion is metaphysics.
> I'm just questioning - not saying it is so - I don't want to push myself to
> clarify that. Matt's definition of metaphysics as a general framework
> however reduces it from a field of study to just another name for a person's
> momentary mindset, something that changes as that person's moment to moment
> situation changes.
>
> I would say that the mindset becomes metaphysics when a person starts to
> reason about their situation and begins to develop an approach or attitude
> (even the attitude 'no attitude' - Book of Five Rings) they intend to carry
> into their future.
>
> Bo, the artifacts left by the dead and those arranged in tombs to
> commemorate them is a signature of their self-consciousness. The idea that
> their self-consciousness indicated an eternal life manifested temporarily in
> a physical body however, would have been too complicated for them; I think
> the life eternal was invented as a comforting metaphysics only to give
> reason to the suffering of life and to avoid the apparent futility of
> living. In the end we can only guess about how our ancestor's thought, and
> today, though conversation with people in the religious mindset is available
> nevertheless it does not seem to clarify our new metaphysics.
>
> If Pirsig's four levels are seen as evolving levels of being just as some
> apes may now have intimations of self awareness so we must begin to ask what
> may be the characteristics of a possible fifth level; certainly an openness
> to what Doris Lessing called the substance of 'We' feeling and also, I
> suggest, a new way of thinking that seeks to re-incorporate the mind with
> the body.
>
> -Peter
>
>
>
> On 12/04/2008, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>> On 6 Apr 2008 at 15:49, Matt Kundert wrote:
>>
>>> My two definitions:
>>
>>> 1) Metaphysics is the general framework, or understanding, or set of
>>> assumptions, that people unconsciously (with various degrees of
>>> self-consciousness) interpret, or see, or live in the world. As an
>>> activity, it is the attempt to make the unconscious self-conscious
>>> (this activity is also known in some circles as "philosophy").
>>
>> Talking to Matt is a safe sport, no disturbing replies. However his
>> definition (#1) is pretty good, only I can't get it basic enough.
>> Even Pirsig's "..no-one living in an ordered universe can avoid
>> metaphysics" should have omitted "ordered" because human
>> beings invariably order existence - that's their hallmark. Thus
>> even the old mythologies were metaphysics in this extended
>> sense.
>>
>> An aside): Because only human beings has entered the Q-social
>> level and a mythology requires language I wonder if not language
>> and the social level are intimately connected. A chicken & egg
>> relationship. From now on I use that as my premises.
>>
>> It's said that the first registered burial rituals is a sign - not only of
>> a notion of an existence beyond, but of an EXISTENCE at all, but
>> as sure is it that early humankind didn't invent the beyond as a
>> comfort against their fear of death, rather that the existence
>> beyond was what confirmed an existence here. Anyone
>> understand the the immensity of this point?
>>
>> As I see it, MOQ's message is that each static level is the
>> creation of a reality different from the one before it and the social
>> level was a shift from biology's non-existential existence (death
>> no issue as an "idea") to one of eternal existence (death as a
>> mere transition to another realm) Thus when the 4th level
>> emerged with its objective outlook that gave death a final "fall
>> from the rim of existence" quality) social value attained a
>> "paradise lost" quality for many.
>>
>> This I believe was behind Phaedrus' identifying the old Aretê with
>> Value itself, and his hatred of SOM that destroyed it. In MOQ this
>> is the social-intellectual transition and my above explains why
>> intellect looks so "valueless" (to regard intellect this way is wrong
>> but enough for now). I just wonder why Pirsig so patently refuses
>> to compare ZAMM with the MOQ and so mysteriously downplays
>> the SOM.
>>
>> Anyway. I also believe this to be behind other attempts to
>> systematize the upheaval around this time in history it, for
>> instance Owen Barfield's "Participation Scheme" that fits
>> uncannily with MOQ's social - intellectual stages and because
>> Barfield postulates a "resumption of participation" fits with the
>> MOQ itself, i.e. a return to the holistic "social" view ... although at
>> a higher plane.
>>
>>> 2) Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that attempts to display
>>> the basic, universal, ahistorical underpinnings of reality (this
>>> activity is also sometimes known in some circles as "Platonism," and
>>> in a few circles the acronymic "SOM").
>>
>> This resembles Pirsig's about the MOQ as a mere theory about
>> the "Quality Reality" that can be divided any way and still be
>> good. Something I deeply disagree with.
>>
>> Bo
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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